Course Goals  Understand the capabilities and limitations of computers  Understand common terminology  Get a bit of practical computer knowledge  Learn the fundamentals some common computer applications  Have fun!!

Why “Computer Literacy?”  To be able to understand how technology works and how it will affect our lives  To be better able to use new technology  To be able to analyze media accounts of technological trends

Topics for the semester  History  Digital Information  How is information represented digitally?  Practical Knowledge  How does it work?  What is a computer?  Computer Networks  Connecting computers together creates a powerful new tool  Social Issues  Applications  What do you want to learn about?

The Early Period: Up to 1940  3,000 years ago: Mathematics, logic, and numerical computation  Important contributions made by the Greeks, Egyptians, Babylonians, Indians, Chinese, and Persians  1614: Logarithms  Invented by John Napier to simplify difficult mathematical computations  Around 1622: First slide rule created

The Early Period: Up to 1940 (continued)  1672: The Pascaline  Designed and built by Blaise Pascal  One of the first mechanical calculators  Could do addition and subtraction

The Early Period: Up to 1940 (continued)  1801: The Jacquard loom  Developed by Joseph Jacquard  Automated loom  Used punched cards to create desired pattern  An aside: Luddites

The Early Period: Up to 1940 (continued)  1823: The Difference Engine  Developed by Charles Babbage  Capabilities:  Addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division to 6 significant digits  Solve polynomial equations and other complex mathematical problems  Played the horses…  First programmer was Ada Lovelace  Story on NPR Story on NPR

The Early Period: Up to 1940 (continued)  1890: U.S. census carried out with programmable card processing machines  Processing the census took more than 10 years!  Built by Herman Hollerith  These machines could automatically read, tally, and sort data entered on punched cards

The Birth of Computers: 1940–1950  Development of electronic, general-purpose computers  Did not begin until after 1940  Was fueled in large part by needs of World War II  Mark I, ENIAC, ABC system, Colossus, Z1

The Birth of Computers: 1940–1950  Stored program computer model  Proposed by John Von Neumann in 1946  Stored binary algorithm in the computer’s memory along with the data  Is known as the Von Neumann architecture  Modern computers remain, fundamentally, Von Neumann machines  First stored program computers  EDVAC  EDSAC

The Modern Era: 1950 to the Present  First generation of computing ( )  Used vacuum tubes to store data and programs  Each computer was multiple rooms in size  Computers were not very reliable

The Modern Era: 1950 to the Present (continued)  Second generation of computing ( )  Replaced vacuum tubes by transistors and magnetic cores  Dramatic reduction in size  Computer could fit into a single room  Increase in reliability of computers  Reduced costs of computers  High-level programming languages  The programmer occupation was born

The Modern Era: 1950 to the Present (continued)  Third generation of computing ( )  Used integrated circuits rather than individual electronic components  Further reduction in size and cost of computers  Computers became desk-sized  First minicomputer developed  Software industry formed

The Modern Era: 1950 to the Present (continued)  Fourth generation of computing ( )  Reduced to the size of a typewriter  First microcomputer developed  Desktop and personal computers common  Appearance of  Computer networks  Electronic mail  User-friendly systems (Graphical user interfaces)  Embedded systems

Figure 1.7 The Altair 8800, the World’s First Microcomputer

The Modern Era: 1950 to the Present (continued)  Fifth generation of computing (1985-?)  Recent developments  Massively parallel processors  Handheld devices and other types of personal digital assistants (PDAs)  High-resolution graphics  Powerful multimedia user interfaces incorporating sound, voice recognition, touch, photography, video, and television

The Modern Era: 1950 to the Present (continued)  Recent developments (continued)  Integrated global telecommunications incorporating data, television, telephone, FAX, the Internet, and the World Wide Web  Wireless data communications  Massive storage devices  Ubiquitous computing

Think about it…  More transistors were put on chips last year than grains of rice were grown in the world.  Computers are not going anywhere soon.